'Pink Ribbons, Inc.' a not-so-rosy view of campaign ???

June 08, 2012|By Mindy Farabee, Special to Tribune Newspapers

Based on Samantha King's book of the same name, Canadian filmmaker Lea Pool's trenchant critique of breast cancer "culture," "Pink Ribbons, Inc." questions the lucrative partnership between the pink ribbon campaign, corporations and cause marketing.

Exploring how companies selling "everything from handguns to gasoline" — including those whose products contain carcinogens — have cozied up to the movement, the film concludes they've bought a lot of good publicity but little medical progress.

Even after massive fundraising efforts ($1.9 billion in the last 30 years fromSusan G. Komen for the Curealone), a woman's lifetime odds of contracting the disease have narrowed from 1 in 22 in 1940 to 1 in 8 today. Little of that money has made its way into research on causes, notably environmental factors such as contaminants from plastics or livestock treated with hormones, the film argues.

Instead the push has been for early detection and developing a cure, two areas that benefit pharmaceutical companies but not necessarily patients, a mere 20 percent to 30 percent of whom come from high-risk groups. You can't cure what you don't understand is one of the film's sobering messages.

Blending expert testimony with emotional appeals from a support group for women diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, this stinging indictment raises an altogether different call to arms.